Sunny Lanes Quilt Block

Sunny Lanes is such a lovely cheerful and summery quilt block pattern. It’s classified as a four patch block and is attributed to Nancy Page, another of the quilting columnists from early in the last century. This is a definite for me to make into a quilt, because I can envisage all sorts of designs being made with those white diagonal lines. I have made it here as a 16″ quilt block, using white, dark brown, orange and cream fabrics.

Cutting requirements

2.1/2″ squares: sixteen orange, sixteen cream – don’t cut these yet as they can be made with strip piecing.

4.7/8″ squares: four white, four dark brown

Making the sunny lanes quilt block

Make half square triangles

Make half square triangles with the 4.7/8″ squares. Place a brown and a white square with right sides together and mark a line along the diagonal. Sew a 1/4″ seam either side of the marked line and cut along the line. This produces two half square triangles which are 4.1/2″ squares. Press the seam allowance towards the brown triangle and trim the corners where the triangle tips stick out. This just helps to reduce bulk in the seams when you sew the sunny lanes quilt block together.

Sew two strips together

Sew a 2.1/2″ strip cut across the width of fabric of orange and cream together. Press the seam allowance towards the orange strip. Cut at 2.1/2″ intervals to produce strips which are a 2.1/2″ square each of orange and of cream. You should get sixteen of these strips from the strip which is lucky because that’s exactly what you need to make the quilt block!

Sunny lanes quilt block layout

Lay the squares out as shown. There is a pair of the 2.1/2″ strips in each corner, placed so as to make a four patch unit with the orange squares diagonally opposite each other. The rest of the 2.1/2″ strips are all placed in the middle, placed so that the orange squares form lines running from top left to bottom right. There are two half square triangles midway along each edge of the quilt block. These are placed so as to form two white lines running in the diagonal direction.

Sew the four patch units first

Sew the pairs of 2.1/2″ squares together first to form four patch units. You can then sew the squares together across each row. Finally sew the rows to each other to complete the sunny lanes quilt block.